Pig cell therapy put on hold due to adverse side-effects

New Scientist, April 29, 2000, p.11

Experiments using fetal pig cells injected into the brains of stroke patients, in an attempt to cure brain damage, have been halted after two out of five patients in the trial developed adverse side-effects.

Thomas Fraser, president of the Charlestown, Massachusetts-based company, Diacrin, which is conducting the trials at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, stopped recruiting volunteers for the stroke trial last week. He admitted that "One patient developed seizures a week after transplant [while] another had minor brain swelling and muscular fatigue." Three other stroke patients treated with the pig cells allegedly experienced no side-effects.

Diacrin is trying to determine what caused the problems - whether it was the pig cells themselves, or the large catheter used to inject the pig cells into the patients’ brains.

Despite these problems, and concerns about pig viruses jumping to humans, the company hopes to resume the stroke trial as soon as it receives the OK from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company also hopes to win FDA approval for trials using pig fetal spinal cells to treat human spinal cord injuries in the Spring of 2000. These trials would take place at the Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York, and at Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri.

Diacrin recently applied for a patent covering the use of fetal pig spinal cells to treat human spinal cord injuries and other neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Lou Gherig’s disease.

Source: Andy Coghlan, "Warning Signals: Trials of a Therapy Using Pig Cells Have Been Put on Hold," New Scientist, 29 April 2000, p.11.

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